My last few days…

I am having so much fun here.  I went to Wal-Mart today with my Mom and sister.  What a treat!  I told Cale he could pick out a cereal.  He was amazed at all of the selection, and finally settled on two-Lucky Charms and Reese's Puffs.

I went to the dentist on Thursday and discovered that after 35 years with no cavities, I now have one. (Bummer, Dude!)  Oh well, it is bound to happen sooner or later.  I went and saw my doctor on Friday.  He discovered that I do have some sort of infection going on but he is not sure what is causing it, my white blood cell count was down along with some other things.  He prescribed an antibiotic and I tried to get it when I was at Wal-Mart.  Wouldn't you know, they didn't have it.  How funny!  Out of the thousands they do have I needed the one they don't.  I was told that they would have it by Monday so I will get it then.  My doctor is running some tests and I will get the results from those next week.  Monday I go for an ultrasound and Wednesday to see another doctor and sometime next week to see an urologist.  Fun, fun, fun...

Today I am going with my family to get a Christmas tree.  We always go to a tree farm and cut down our own-I LOVE the way they smell.  I am sitting here listening to Christmas music looking at my Mom's beautiful Christmas decorations pondering how blessed I am to be here.

This is wonderful!

Love you all

Rachel

My Trip to Wisconsin

"Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays.." Wouldn't you agree? Well, home is where I am!!!!!! Can you believe it? Cale and I decided to surprise my family and make a trip to Wisconsin (in December. What are we , nuts? It is freezing here!) But we are having so much fun. Cale is loving all the choices in food and the fact that he can drink water right from the faucet. Today God even sent us some snow. My friend brought us a winter coat and some boots and snowpants just Cale's size. And Garth's sister loaded me up with warm shirts and sweaters along with a bunch of warm stuff for Cale as well. We are both still getting used to the time difference. The first night we were in bed at 8 and both up at 4 hungry. We crept upstairs and had a bowl of cereal (Cale has discovered that he loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch). Then we took a nap at 8. I slept till noon and had to wake Cale up at 2. Last night he was up at midnight and wide awake. He crawled into bed with me and started talking. This is what I heard, "Mommy, what color are my jammie pants? Mommy, when you lay like that it looks like you only have one shoulder. Mom, when I say something and then say I am just kidding am I lying?" My, my such questions for so early a time...finally we both fell back to sleep until 5. It takes quite a few days to get all adjusted.

Do I sound like I am closer? I am so excited to be here. The trip was long. It was a total of 48 hours from when I left to when I got here. It will be awesome to celebrate the holidays with my family but a bit sad to miss it with Garth and the kids.

Well, I am sure I will see many of you in church and in Wal-Mart. I can't wait to see Wal-Mart again!

Love you

Rachel

Cale’s Party!

We celebrated Cale’s birthday a  little early and had a party today with all of his preschool friends.  It was a great deal of fun with a clown craft, a balloon game and cupcake decorating.  Here are some pictures:

Rest

Do you ever have one of those days when you finally sit down and you think, “This is the first time I have sat down all day.”? My day was like that today, and part of it was my own doing. I woke up and made cupcakes with Cale for his party tomorrow. Then we found out that Ibu Poppi wasn’t coming again today (she hasn’t been here all week), so I decided that since the tortilla lady had come the other day to the house and sold us tortillas I would make tacos for lunch for all of us. I figured we could get the ingredients for that when we ran out to the store to buy 5 flats of eggs for the school. With eggs being scarce we were told that there was only one place that we could find them. And luckily we did, however they did not have any tomatoes or onions or lettuce. So there goes my idea of tacos. It is now almost 10:00 and I do not know what I am going to make for lunch. Then I found a recipe for this ground beef, cheese macaroni thing that I adapted to fit what was available here. And wouldn’t you know, the gas goes out on our stove. At 11:15 we still had no gas and 18 hungry kids coming to the hostel in 30 minutes. It all worked out in the long run - I asked the other hostel if I could use their oven to cook everything, Garth helped switch the gas tanks and we did have lunch, (5 minutes late). I said this was my own doing because this morning Garth asked me if I wanted the dorm kids to just order lunch and I said no. They can order stuff like rice and chicken or fish from a restaurant here in town and they will deliver it up to the school. However, I really thought that Ibu Poppi would be here or that I would have an easy morning of chopping stuff for tacos…but life doesn’t always go as you had planned, does it?

Throughout my morning, I had a song in my head from a band called Skillet. The chorus goes like this:

“I rest in the shelter of your love,

I rest in the wonder of your love,

I rest in the shelter of your love,

I rest in the wonder of You!”

I was thinking about those words-I don’t know if I actually do that. I seem to have a hard time resting. It runs in my family. I used to wake up Saturday morning to a list of chores we were all going to do before we did anything else. My Dad works when he is on vacation. My Mom would only let us watch one hour of TV a day and we had to be doing something while we were sitting there (clean out a junk drawer, write a thank you note…) Could I really rest in the wonder of God and His love? Like really enjoy His presence, sit and reflect on His greatness and love without thinking of all the things I need to get done? There is a saying up by our mirror that says, “God, if I don’t get anything else done today I want to know you better and love you more.” I don’t know about that either. I am a list person. I like to make the most of my time-I like to get a lot of things done throughout the day. A day of resting would seem really out of character and strange. But I realize that I need to practice the art of resting. How about you? Can you rest? Are you a Mary or a Martha?

Life is like a whirlpool that sweeps you along at a rapid pace and at times it can feel impossible to slow down. Yet, I think the more we take time to slow down and rest in the wonder of God’s love the more we will realize how much we NEED to make moments like that a regular part of our life.

Slow down-Rest-Soak up the wonderfulness that surrounds God’s love.

Rachie

Don't Grump It Up!

Hey there! We have had a busy two days at the hostel. Ibu Poppi did not come in both days. Someone in their family died and so she will be gone until at least Thursday. That makes it a bit crazy for me. And hot! I bet it has been awhile since you were hot and sweaty!?! Sophie was praying tonight for Grampo as he works at Grand Geneva putting up the Christmas lights. She prayed that he would not be too hot working outside all day. I don’t think that will be the problem! More like cold, huh, Dad?
Cale made up a story for me today. I wrote it down so that I would remember it.
It went something like this:

“I love you in the morning and if a mean guy shoots you dead.
I love you even when you’re mean, and I don’t like it when I see your finger. “ (He meant my pointer finger extended pointing at him when he does something wrong).
“I don’t love it when I have to go to bed.
I love it when I can watch movies.
I love you but I don’t like you when you grump it up.
Hi, Mom. I’m Cale.”
The End

I do that, too. What he said. I grump it up. Do you do that? I get upset about something or I am in a bad mood and I let it affect everything around me. The whole spaghetti concept. I am not a waffle. I don’t think we should shove our feelings down inside, but I do think that sometimes the things that upset me can be dealt with and then I can move on. Instead of stewing in them and making it a problem that messes up my whole day. I take a beautiful new day that God has given me and (like Cale says) “I grump it up.”
That does not sound like fun, now does it?
Here’s to an ungrumpy day-
Love you
Rachel

Lagoon

This Saturday we went to the beach called Amay.  It was not the trash beach that we went to last time.  In fact this is one of my favorite beaches.  It has a very large fresh water lagoon that flows into the ocean with a soft sandy bottom.  It is so nice to have fresh water to rinse off all the grime and sand of the ocean in.  The waves were quite large there and were knocking me over.  So without even trying I wound up with sand in my suit and thanks to my sunscreen, stuck on my face as well.  It became at times uncomfortable and so after a few dips in the lagoon I felt so refreshed and comfortable again.  You know, life can get grimy and gross at times.  All of our mess ups and mistakes can really make our lives a mess.  But God’s great forgiveness is even more refreshing than the lagoon.  He is there to help make everything clean again.  He will give us a fresh start each time.  I am not saying that we have a free chance to screw up as much as we want and then ask for forgiveness and do it again and again.  That is not the way to live the abundant Christian life.  What I am saying is, when you mess up, don’t walk around carrying that grime, feeling bad and kicking yourself for messing up.  Go to the lagoon.  Go to God.  He is waiting for you and me to make a fresh start.

Shirts

We see the funniest shirts here.  The T-shirt makers try real hard to make the shirts look American but they do not know English so the wording is always wrong.  Below is a picture of what I am talking about.  Also some pictures of Cale out and about Sentani.  We do have car carts in one store!  That makes us feel right at home-like shopping at Wal-Mart (O.k., Not really-the cleanliness level is nothing like Wal-Mart, or the smell…)

I just got back from watching Wyatt’s first soccer game.  He is now on a team and has practices twice a week and games every Friday.  His team won and he scored one of the goals tonight.  That was exciting!  Cale of course, was hanging out by the girls bench, flirting…

Sophie had a presentation today in her class on the rain forest.  That was a fun project.  She learned a lot of new things and it was especially interesting since we are living so close to the forests she was studying.

We are watching some extra kids this weekend while their parents are away, and taking the dorm to the beach tomorrow which means I have lots to do and need to say Good-bye.

Love you all

Rachel